Aggressiveness is a characteristic that tends to reward fantasy
owners more times than not. In the NFL, an offensive line will sometimes
hold up long enough to give the quarterback enough time to beat
man coverage down the field and make the defense look foolish against
a fierce pass rush. More often than not, though, when a defense
brings the heat and forces the action, crisis management becomes
the name of the game for the opposing team.

In that same vein, I hope to apply that same kind of pressure
to the owners in all of my leagues by beating my opponents to
the punch in regards to personnel moves. Sometimes, reaching a
conclusion about a player too quickly results in making a bad
situation worse. However, coming to a correct conclusion two weeks
or two minutes quicker than your opponents is considered foresight
and can often lead to fantasy championships.

Fantasy owners can be a uneasy lot, knowing that one two-or-three-game
losing streak can wreak irreparable damage to his/her team’s
chances to make a visit to the fantasy postseason. But just as
it is in the NFL and in life, it’s hard to land the big
prize by playing scared. Thus, I will strive each week to help
each of you become a smart blitzer, so to speak.

Fantasy owners are no strangers to surprises – some are
good, most are bad. While the good ones are almost always welcome
– a surplus of elite options at one position for example
– the bad ones rarely ever come at a great time. But if
there was ever a bad time for a key fantasy player to suffer a
multi-week injury or suspension, it might be Week 13. For some
owners, an early-game injury in that week ends the playoff dreams
of a team that overcame adversity all season long just to have
it go down in flames in the final game of the regular season.
For others, a player suspension on the cusp of the playoffs leaves
precious little time for his owners to find a viable alternative.
In just about every league, the trade deadline has come and gone,
meaning the waiver wire and your bench are the only options you
have to fill the void.

Forte's injury comes at the worst time
for his owners.

It’s should be obvious by now I am referring to Matt
Forte and Fred
Davis. In one week, fantasy football lost two players – likely
for the remainder of the season – that were top 10 options at
their positions. Given the recent drafting track records of Chicago
and Washington, it’s not as if either team has a talented Ben
Tate-like backup who has just been waiting for the chance to prove
himself. While Forte regularly accounted for nearly half of the
Bears’ offense in reality, his impact will merely make a lot of
other borderline options in the Bears’ offense like Earl
Bennett and Johnny
Knox that much tougher to love since defenses won’t have to
respect the run as much. In the case of the Redskins, Davis’ absence
could make Santana
Moss and Jabar
Gaffney highly unpredictable going forward. On one hand, with
Roy
Helu emerging as a threat in the backfield, the two wideouts
could be in line for 2-3 more targets per game and put up WR2
numbers in PPR leagues in the right matchup (like this week).
On the other hand, the duo could be almost unusable in any game
in which HC Mike Shanahan simply decides to go run-heavy in an
effort to avoid putting too much on Rex
Grossman’s plate. However, a quick look at Washington’s remaining
games (Patriots, Giants and Vikings) suggests both receivers could
be in for a strong finish as Washington will likely be trailing
in at least two of those games and the Vikings’ secondary is so
weak right now that opponents would be foolish to not attack it.

While Forte’s current timetable is 2-6 weeks, the low end of
that projection is probably too optimistic and the high end is
too late for the Bears and the thousands of his fantasy owners
who had hoped they could ride one of the most durable RBs in the
league to a fantasy title. Just as the case was in Week 1 with
Jamaal Charles, there is very little an owner can do in this situation
to overcome such a loss. Thankfully, Chicago has a capable reserve
in Marion
Barber, but I cannot picture him turning back the clock to
the days where he warranted a first-round pick in fantasy leagues,
even for a 2-4 week period and certainly not without Jay
Cutler under center. Whereas Forte was a surefire RB1, Barber
strikes me as a high-end flex play.

As for Davis, what can be said about a player who knows the league’s
rules regarding illegal drugs and breaks them anyway? Certainly,
shallow-league owners should be able to find a halfway capable
reserve from my 22-man list below, but medium- and deeper-league
owners don’t have a lot of appealing free-agent options
at the position at this point of the season, and especially this
week. (And no, new starter Logan Paulsen isn’t a fantasy
option.) Jacob Tamme faces Baltimore and a pending Dallas Clark
return while Scott Chandler (who is catching an amazing 85% of
his targets and has seen a recent increase in fantasy value) may
be sidelined this week. On the matchup side of things, the two
friendliest defenses vs. opposing TEs (Chicago and Green Bay)
have matchups against Denver and Oakland, respectively. As we
know by now, neither Daniel Fells nor Kevin Boss inspires a great
deal of confidence. In my “Waiver Wire Stars” at the
bottom of the page, I may have an option for you, but a lot of
Davis owners may need to say a little prayer this week if they
don’t have another fair-to-decent option behind him already
on the roster.

As much as I believe skill and perseverance gets fantasy owners
through the regular season, I’ve long believed that owners need
a little bit of good fortune to smile on them in the playoffs.
For some, that means their team simply stays healthy for three
straight weeks. For others, it means playing against an opponent
that has Beanie
Wells facing the Niners’ defense or Cedric
Benson against the Texans the week you play them. At this
point, there’s very little advice that I can provide other than
to take in all the injury information possible about your players
and their opponents this week. (For instance, how much better
is Wells’ matchup with San Francisco if Patrick Willis is forced
to miss the game?) Beyond that, observe the workload and target
trends in the charts below and make some educated guesses. (Is
Reggie
Wayne really all that much better of a play than Brad
Smith or Golden
Tate? Dare I trust Miles
Austin right away after such a long layoff?)

Make no mistake about it, this season was a challenge for even
the most savvy fantasy owners, but it’s not quite over quite
yet. As much as I fell below my usual standards in terms of winning
divisions and/or clinching playoff berths, I feel fortunate that
I actually had multiple teams make the postseason when each team
was hit pretty hard by injuries. The good news for my main teams,
along with many other owners, is that the number of injuries has
slowed to a crawl after a plethora of nagging injuries to key
players struck players during the first half of the season. So
instead of debating the merits of starting Chris Ogbonnaya vs.
Kevin Faulk this week or next as a RB2, we can focus on the same
question we face every year around this time: who do I play in
my flex? It seems like such a small distinction to make, but one
player producing – or falling on his face – in the
fantasy playoffs is usually the difference between winning and
losing that week. Moving on…

The cutoff at each position below is five touches/targets
per game. To help provide some perspective, the average fantasy
points/touch for the 64 RBs that qualify for my list above is
0.76. For the 63 WRs who qualified, the overall average for fantasy
points/target is 0.59 and among the 22 that made the list at TE,
it is 0.63. Feel free to use that number as a barometer to help
you evaluate who is making the grade and who is not.

Note: For the players whose names and touches/targets are
bolded and italicized, it reflects the touches/targets each player
had with their former team before they were traded/released by
that team.

We may be living in the age of decreasing workloads for RBs,
but it is usually around this time of year that we get to see
who the coaches really trust in the backfield. Now while I knew
Marshawn Lynch was on a nice little scoring streak, I’ll
be the first to admit that I didn’t truly appreciate how
dominant he has been until this past week. And given the way he
ran over Philadelphia, it probably comes as little surprise –
especially to his owners – that he has been carrying the
heaviest workload in the NFL over the last five weeks (27.4 touches/game).
It’s a pretty amazing fact that his low game in PPR over
that stretch has been 16.9 fantasy points and all of this is even
more impressive considering he has been without the entire right
side of his line (rookies RG John Moffitt, RT James Carpenter)
for three weeks already. Against the Eagles, it seemed like every
notable run went to the right side behind replacements Paul McQuistan
and Bruno Ciacomini. That may have to continue since LT Russell
Okung joined Moffitt and Carpenter on IR this week, although a
home game against the Rams may help matters a bit. While it is
notable that Lynch’s low fantasy game over the last five
came against St. Louis, it’s getting harder to believe that
he won’t get another 25-30 touches to do a little better
this time around.

Does anyone else get the feeling that Ravens OC Cam Cameron is
going to use one of these upcoming weeks to “work on the passing
game”? Cameron graduated from the Norv Turner school of using
the run to set up the vertical passing game and Rice’s recent
history suggests the OC simply can’t be happy just running the
ball. While Rice generally remains quite active in the passing
game, it is almost as if Cameron can’t help himself to be anything
but aggressive. Rice, much like LeSean
McCoy, hasn’t put together more than three consecutive 20-touch
games all season long. While that may seem a bit of an anomaly,
Rice has three consecutive 20-touch games and Cameron could choose
this week against the Colts to show off Joe Flacco’s arm again.
Coming off a season-high 31 touches, Rice’s fantasy potential
this week is huge if you consider the matchup, but could disappoint
if Cameron gets too pass happy again. Rice also has yet to post
consecutive 100-yard games this season, so with an early two-
or three- score lead likely and Ricky
Williams running the ball well, Baltimore could opt to make
this one of those head-scratcher games for Rice owners. Obviously,
I’m not advising that anyone sit Rice; all I’m suggesting is that
even though a 150-yard, three-score effort is a possibility, it
wouldn’t be terribly shocking if he disappoints slightly this
week. When one considers that New England essentially rested BenJarvus
Green-Ellis – albeit a much different back in a much different
offense – against Indy, the Ravens could opt to do the same thing
this week.

Was last week the game when Mark Ingram became the true lead
back in New Orleans? If you believe the reports coming out of
New Orleans, that talk will have to wait a week, if not more,
after he was held out of practice with turf toe on Wednesday.
There has been nothing yet to suggest this is a serious case,
but any turf toe for a RB is not good for his playing status that
week and perhaps beyond. I did find it quite interesting the Saints
opted to give their prize rookie one of his heaviest workloads
of the season last week against a Lions defense that has allowed
the fifth-most catches to RBs this season. Pierre Thomas saw a
season-low four touches – half his previous low –
while Darren Sproles’ role remained virtually the same.
It’s also notable that HC Sean Payton told the Sunday Night
Football crew prior to the game that “the only thing keeping
Ingram from being Rookie of the Year is me”. After two encouraging
weeks, Ingram’s owners may need to shelve their enthusiasm
until next season when Payton hopefully drops the three-headed
attack.

I had to do a double take early this week as I was compiling
the target numbers for the receivers. Certainly, seeing Wes
Welker and Calvin
Johnson high on the list was no surprise, but Roddy
White has seemingly come out of nowhere to tie Welker for
the league lead in targets. Obviously, 14 targets/game over the
last three weeks has helped him get to that point, but if ever
there was a downside in looking strictly at target numbers, it
is that opportunity doesn’t necessarily equal success as much
as it usually leads to success. White and Brandon
Lloyd are great examples of this phenomenon. (This is one
of several reasons why I decided to make catch rate a weekly feature
for receivers and tight ends.) White’s last three weeks serve
as a pretty good indication that he is sufficiently healed from
the preseason thigh bruise that hindered him for most of the first
half of the season. But it bears mentioning that despite the recent
increase in targets, White’s catch rate has dipped slightly in
that time and his current rate (54%) is a full 10% less than last
year when it appeared Tony Gonzalez was losing a step and Michael
Jenkins was the starting WR opposite White. White’s job –
after mostly squaring off against Houston’s Johnathan Joseph last
week – doesn’t get much easier this week against Carolina’s Chris
Gamble, meaning it could be another good week for Gonzalez, Jones
and maybe even Harry
Douglas.

Here’s a bit of trivia for you: name the top three WRs in PPR
since Week 8. No one would blame you if two of your three answers
were Welker and Calvin Johnson, but you’d be wrong. In terms of
total points, the right answers are Victor
Cruz, Percy
Harvin and Laurent
Robinson. In terms of average, the answers are Harvin, Cruz
and Jordy
Nelson. As much as I could use this time to vent over Vikings’
OC Bill Musgrave and his inability to see how much Harvin could
help this offense when Minnesota still had something to play for,
I’ll instead use this time to remind each of you that after kickers
and defenses, receivers could very well be the most difficult
position to predict in fantasy. And the funny thing is that most
diehard football viewers knew each of these four aforementioned
players had this kind of production in them a year or more before
their coaches allowed it to happen. With Cruz, I instantly flash
back to the 2010 preseason game where he scored three times. With
Harvin, I recall any number of different games, but particularly
a MNF game vs. New England last season where he was nearly unstoppable.
Robinson has always been long on talent and short on durability,
which is the main reason why two teams (Atlanta, St. Louis) basically
cut bait on him. As for Nelson, most of us wondered why the Packers
would spend a second-round pick on a receiver back in 2008 only
to have him go to waste behind Donald
Driver. It wasn’t until late last season where he was given
much of a chance to even prove his worth.

Following a long midseason nap, Pierre Garcon reintroduced himself
to fantasy owners in Week 13. His 36-point effort in PPR was a
career high, but he’s going to be a tough start from here
on out with matchups against Baltimore, Tennessee and Houston
on the horizon. There’s a small chance I’d play him
as a WR3 in Weeks 14 and Week 15, but he’s been so hit-or-miss
for the majority of his career up to this point and not exactly
someone I view as anything more than a matchup play. Despite his
six TDs this season, he has only scored in three games, all of
which were good matchups for him against teams with average safety
play at best – and that’s being kind in a couple of
cases. Further consider his QB for the rest of this season and
it’s just not worth the risk.

Since I mentioned a player that just burned the Patriots in the
passing game, let’s talk a bit about New England’s
next matchup. It’s getting harder and harder to ignore just
how good of a play both receivers on the same team – and
in some cases, the top three – are against a Patriots secondary
that must be driving Bill Belichick crazy. I mention this for
those owners considering Santana Moss and Jabar Gaffney this week.
In light of the Fred Davis suspension, Rex Grossman will be the
next man up to face the soft New England secondary in the latest
edition of the movable object vs. the resistible force. It would
take more intestinal fortitude than I have to start Grossman in
the fantasy postseason, but I see no reason why Moss and Gaffney
shouldn’t be starting in just about every scoring format
this week. In PPR, the Pats are allowing over 44 fantasy points
to opposing WRs, which is the highest average any defense has
yielded to the position going as far back as I can (the 2000 season)
using this site’s custom scoring option (LINK). For those
of you that remember how bad the Cowboys’ secondary was
last season, well, New England’s two points/game worse than
that.

One indication of how this season was going to unfold for me
was during the fifth round of my final online money-league draft.
As time was running out on me to make a selection, I settled on
Jimmy Graham over Mario Manningham (and others) with my pick and
clicked on his name to make my selection. As luck would have it,
I was awarded Manningham about 10 seconds later. I thought I rebounded
nicely with Owen Daniels in the next round, but the stage was
already set for disappointment. I use this short story as a lead-in
to discuss Graham, who is primed to become the next great TE in
the mold of Tony Gonzalez and Antonio Gates. Obviously, Rob Gronkowski
deserves a mention in that category as well, but Graham’s
upside is higher and his quarterback is younger. Much like Gates
was when he entered the league, Graham is a very raw player in
terms of actual football experience, but his freakish athleticism
makes him a matchup nightmare for man or zone defenses. And just
like Gronkowski, Graham is such a size mismatch for opponents
that it does little good to double team him. Not since 2008 when
Gonzalez piled up 155 targets with the Chiefs have we seen another
TE on pace for 150 targets.

But it gets better: with four games remaining, Graham is already
21st on the all-time list for receiving yards in a single season
by a TE. On his current 87.2 yards/game pace – which would
be the best average ever for a TE – Graham will break Kellen
Winslow’s all-time record of 1,290 receiving yards by a
TE (set back in 1980) sometime near the end of Week 16’s
matchup against the Falcons. Gonzalez’s tight-end record
of 102 catches is also within reach. I’d say all this is
pretty good for a third-round pick two years ago whose most notable
strength coming out of Miami (FL) was as a shot blocker on the
basketball court.

Over the course of a few hours last Sunday, most of Fred Davis’
owners experienced the kind of rollercoaster emotions no owner
wants to endure right before the fantasy playoffs. For many of
those owners, the day probably started off just the same as the
previous 10-12 weeks, hopeful that a talented TE would get his
looks against a Jets’ defense that was likely to shut down
the Redskins’ receivers. While he certainly did not disappoint
on the field, it was the news that actually came out before the
game (which many people did not find out until later in the day)
that crushed his fantasy owners – namely that he had failed
yet another drug test. SI.com later reported the drug was marijuana.
The subsequent four-game suspension for being a repeat offender
had to serve as a kick in the pants to his owners on the doorstep
of the fantasy playoffs. For his dynasty league owners, they have
to hope Davis finally learns from this latest suspension because
his next “mistake” will result in a year-long absence.
Therefore, as owners look forward to next season, that possibility
needs to weigh on the mind of every owner that considers drafting
him from now until the end of his career.

Next Week’s Waiver Wire Stars

Each week, I’ll select one player at QB, RB, WR and TE
that is available in at least three of my five leagues and make
a case as to why they could be important to you the following
week or beyond. For those of you who have been loyal readers for
some time, you already know I am not concerned with making safe
picks; selective and smart aggressiveness is often the name of
the game in fantasy.

With the fantasy playoffs upon us, the future is now. Therefore,
each of the recommendations I make from now until Week 16 will
be on players that should help immediately with the remaining
schedule in mind.

QB:T.J. Yates, Houston. Two Texan
QB recommendations in three weeks? Well, here’s my defense:
this week, he faces a Cincinnati secondary that lost Leon Hall
for the season and may be without Nate Clements again. Next week,
it’s Carolina’s defense and, in Week 16, it’s
Indianapolis. Now, while I understand the running game should
steal the show in each game and the team will likely sit Andre
Johnson at least one week, I tend to believe Houston is comfortable
enough with the rookie that it will allow him to operate in the
same fashion Matt Schaub did. Yates certainly did nothing last
week to suggest he couldn’t handle the Texans’ upcoming
schedule. Keeping the next three opponents in mind, Yates could
easily have a 200-yard, two-score game once, if not twice. That
production from the QB position gets it done in fantasy more often
than not.

RB:Brandon Saine, Green Bay. The
best waiver-wire options in most of my leagues are Saine and Chris
Ivory, both of which are highly speculative plays at best given
their status on the depth chart. However, both players have a
shot at playing time this week (and perhaps beyond) if injuries
to James Starks and Mark Ingram end up costing one or both a game
or two. For my money, the best bet is Saine, who has the best
hands on the team according to Aaron Rodgers. Ryan Grant has yet
to show any explosion and is playing out the last year of his
contract, which leaves Saine and John Kuhn as the most likely
standout RBs for the Packers this weekend vs. Oakland. Please
understand that any Green Bay RB is a desperation play at best
this week, but it’s not unthinkable that Saine could run
for 30-40 yards and catch 3-4 passes, taking one of those 8-10
touches in the end zone.

WR:Brad Smith, Buffalo. In my
opinion, there are three likely waiver-wire receivers this week
that warrant a mention, two of which have legitimate WR3 value
already this week. Golden Tate, according to HC Pete Carroll,
finally carried over his practice exploits to the playing field
and will be “heavily involved” from now on. He’s
worth an add, but I’d have a very hard trusting any Seahawks
receiver – even against the Rams. The second player is Malcom
Floyd, who has posted 100 yards in three of the last four games
in which he has played. With Floyd, his owners are always counting
the number of plays until he suffers his next injury, but his
matchup is a decent one this week and his starting job is not
in question. My final recommendation, however, is my strongest
one. For years, I have felt Smith was heavily underutilized. I’m
sure much like Bills’ fans, I figured when Smith was handed
nearly $4 M/year to leave the Jets, he would see a lot of playing
time in a sort of “Slash” hybrid role that would make
somewhat useful in fantasy. Instead, much like fellow gadget player
Percy Harvin, Smith’s role was much more limited than we
could have imagined as he was limited to the occasional “Wildcat”
snap and little else. However, with Buffalo’s skill-position
players dropping like flies late in the season, Smith has been
forced into action at Donald Jones’ old starting spot and
produced in both of his starts. I’m shocked HC Chan Gailey
has yet to use him much as a passer on gadget plays, but right
now, his receiving totals are more than serviceable by themselves.
With Fred Jackson already out for the season, the Bills can be
expected to remain a high-volume passing team, so I suspect Smith’s
17 targets over the past two weeks will be representative of what
he accrue going forward.

TE:Anthony Fasano, Miami. If you
go strictly by the matchups, it’s hard to see any TE that
has a better remaining schedule than Chicago’s Kellen Davis.
However, as we discussed earlier, opportunity doesn’t always
lead to success and the next time I throw my support behind a
TE from a Mike Martz offense will probably also be the first time
I have done so. Somewhere lower on the matchup totem pole is Fasano,
who has quietly averaged 10.3 fantasy points in PPR over the last
five weeks, good for 13th best in the NFL over that time. Much
of the credit for that goes to a two-score game against the Chiefs
five weeks ago, but even if you call that game a fluke, he has
scored at least 8.8 points in three of the next four games. I
wouldn’t be in any rush to play him if I already had a top
10-12 TE on my roster, but for those owners looking for a Fred
Davis fill-in, Fasano seems to have earned enough trust from Matt
Moore to help desperate Davis owners through a bit of a tough
stretch.

Suggestions, comments, musings about the article
or fantasy football in general? E-mail
me.

Doug Orth has written for FF Today since 2006, appeared
in USA Today’s Fantasy Football Preview magazine in each
of the last two seasons and served as a weekly fantasy football
analyst for 106.7 The Fan in Washington, D.C. this past season.
He is also a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association.
You can also follow him
on Twitter.